Alert WiFi LAN & WAN Channel Collision!!

[CaptainGizmo]

OK, this really SUCKED! But, hopefully, I can save someone else from doing the same thing.

Last night, on my Transit, I decided to do a little test after seeing that the park's wifi was pretty decent on a speed run. So, along with my usual 2 Cellular WANs, I moved BOTH 2.4 and 5Ghz WANs into action.

Well, the 5Ghz grabbed onto the park's network, but the 2.4 was having trouble connecting. And then it happened....WHAM!! (and it wasn't good music either)

All my devices lost their connections, and WORSE, I couldn't get into the PepWave portal to make any changes!! I kept getting bounced off my network, and then the SSID would disappear.

I rebooted a couple times and the same thing kept happening. So, I gave it a final attempt, by staging my laptop on the portal, and just waiting for the network to become available by watching on my iPhone. When it did, I quickly got to the Dashboard and moved both WiFi as WANs down to Disabled. Thankfully, that worked!!

CAUSE:
After doing a little research, knowing where I had just been, I landed on a couple posts on the PepWave forum regarding channel collision when the WiFi as WAN and AP (LAN) are using the same band.

PROBLEM:
There was some other technical talk about the "why's", but the PepWave will shut it's AP down if this collision occurs.

SOLUTION:
One gent sadly suggested the best solution is a external AP unit. But, as a "workaround", the best practice is to be sure to activate ONLY ONE of the WiFi as WANs and use the OTHER band for your AP. So, for example, set your AP to use ONLY 2.4Ghz, and then use the 5Ghz WiFi as WAN, or vice versa.

So, I've gone back to my usual practice of just not even using an outside WiFi as a source of WAN. Seems odd that the PepWave wouldn't be a little more protective rather than just blatantly shutting down and thus LOCKING the admin out. I'm still researching some type of configuration that would prevent this from ever happening. One possibility is to lock down Channel selections, but I'm not real sure how that's going to help any collisions.

Feel free to chime in...let's see if we can make sense of this before submitting a tech request to PepLink.

 

[Neal]

Correct me if I'm wrong but not only are 2.4 and 5 different frequency spectrums they don't share the same channels either? Are you using any other WiFi in your coach? The only thing I can think of is a conflict with your neighbor. Do you have a specific band selected or are you using auto which is the default as like any router it will select the best option either on the set schedule or on reboot.

It's also default for every Wi-Fi router out there such as we use at homes to have both radios on and devices connect to their best choice of frequency. It sounds like something else going on here such as a setting changed or a pepwave glitch. Curious of what you find and whether you can reproduce it or not.

 

[lemondrop9344]

Captain Gizmo,
From what I've read on the Peplink forum, you are not the 1st one to encounter issues similar to this.

One of the really neat things about the Peplink products is the flexibility they provide the user to allow the product to 'manage all the connections' or allow the user to configure the 'management of the connections'. Sometimes when we start trying 'new things' with the distribution of signals (especially WIFI signals) we ask the Peplink device to do things which it probably considers to be unnatural.

SOLUTION:
One gent sadly suggested the best solution is a external AP unit. But, as a "workaround", the best practice is to be sure to activate ONLY ONE of the WiFi as WANs and use the OTHER band for your AP. So, for example, set your AP to use ONLY 2.4Ghz, and then use the 5Ghz WiFi as WAN, or vice versa.

The solution offered up on the Peplink forum is pretty much standard to maximize utilization of the equipment when distributing the WIFI signals on your LAN. As I understand it, even with an AP installed you need to configure the WIFI signal distribution so they don't disrupt each other. However, what would concern me is your stated inability (as I interpret your post) to connect to the user interface. Is your connection to the Peplink device via Ethernet or WIFI? My best guess would be WIFI. You might want to consider connecting a much equipment as possible via Ethernet cabling to minimize the traffic over WIFI.

I've found the Peplink forum to be very helpful (albeit somewhat technical) if you can tell them what you are trying to accomplish.

Good luck & safe travels.

 

[Neal]

I used a separate AP for a long time first using a Netgear R9000 and later put in an Orbi mesh. It just complicated things so I removed it. Very glad I did. Definitely sounds like a bug, maybe open a support ticket and notify Peplink?

 

[MapNerd]

I have experienced this a couple of times and never understood the cause of it. Each time, I’ve had to connect an ethernet cable to a LAN port on the pepwave in order to get into the dashboard because the APs would disappear. @CaptainGizmo’s explanation makes sense to me and though I can’t be certain, I am pretty sure I was trying to use both 2.4 and 5 as WiFi as WAN at the same time. Won’t do that anymore.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

I used a separate AP for a long time first using a Netgear R9000 and later put in an Orbi mesh. It just complicated things so I removed it. Very glad I did. Definitely sounds like a bug, maybe open a support ticket and notify Peplink?

Yes Neal, I’m thinking about doing that, except I wanted to vet this issue first; thinking along the lines of what lemondrop eluded to…operator error.

To clarify your question about spectrums being different, no…let me rephrase it.

Your AP can operate on 2.4
Your WiFi as WAN can operate on 2.4

If you have both of those going, you face potential troubles. The exact same for 5Ghz.

So, the way to prevent that is this:

Set your AP to 2.4Ghz only
Use ONLY the 5Ghz WiFi as WAN

In other words, DONT USE BOTH SPECTRUMS ON AP AND WAN at the same time. It’s like letting cars go through a tunnel with bidirectional lanes in both directions and hope there’s no collision.

 

[Neal]

Interesting and it's like someone telling me don't put a knife in the electrical outlet. I'll have to experiment with this when I hit the road again soon

I've often wondered of the scenario of using 5 ghz for my internal network which doesn't require it to be out of disabled, that's for the external (wan) (for those trying to follow us geeks). Can the pepwave dual task on the same spectrum (5 ghz per se) to bring in an outside source and also broadcast on an inside source. I was thinking we really don't do this in homes but then again we do if you use AP bridges (or whatever it's called) to extend your network.

I know I've had to take control of channels when I use both of my pepwaves to broadcast Wi-Fi to ensure they don't use the same channels. Auto should work to deconflict but I can't remember if I had troubles with that. What I can do, and probably have done (can't remember - A.G.E. syndrome) as I have two pepwaves is I use one for external Wi-Fi and not touch the unit that's serving inside. Same scenario as an external AP as mentioned. Networking sucks!

If you care to share I'd love to see your AP settings screen. I'll tinker on my next outing as well and see if I can reproduce this.

 

[Neal]

Okay, I seem to recall I have brought out ONE Wi-Fi wan to bring in from the outside and did not have issues so that negates the outside and inside on the same spectrum scenario.

I don't think I've tried bringing both 2.4 and 5 out at the same time. Never had a need. I try 5 ghz first and then switch to 2.4 if trying to pickup CG wi-fi.

And this is why the first 6 hours of my CG arrival is lost.

 

[lemondrop9344]

Yes Neal, I’m thinking about doing that, except I wanted to vet this issue first; thinking along the lines of what lemondrop eluded to…operator error.

To clarify your question about spectrums being different, no…let me rephrase it.

Your AP can operate on 2.4
Your WiFi as WAN can operate on 2.4

If you have both of those going, you face potential troubles. The exact same for 5Ghz.

So, the way to prevent that is this:

Set your AP to 2.4Ghz only
Use ONLY the 5Ghz WiFi as WAN

In other words, DONT USE BOTH SPECTRUMS ON AP AND WAN at the same time. It’s like letting cars go through a tunnel with bidirectional lanes in both directions and hope there’s no collision.

I took a screen shot of my UI. I am not a big fan of WIFI if I can plug an Ethernet cable into it. With that said, I played around & settled on this setup while I'm in the RV park.

Peplink CAT-18 has AT&T & Verizon SIMs. The WAN Ethernet port is wired to an old GB switch. I attach my PC, NAS & printer to the switch via Ethernet. Cellular signal is primarily for business use. You will see I have the park WIFI set up as a 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz as a WIFI WAN connection with a lower priority. If my cellular connection drops, it goes to Priority 2 & if that drops it goes to Priority 3. I have 4 AP's broadcasting from my Peplink device. This is a function of the device & when I install my outside antennae I'll probably make some changes on the AP's.
Due to the layout of my RV, distributing a WIFI signal to the front TV is difficult. So, I stream media directly to the ROKU's from the RV park WIFI. This so far has worked pretty good for me.
By using the ROKU's connected to the RV park WIFI & connecting as much as I can with Ethernet, I've minimized as much WIFI management the Peplink has to deal with. Rather any of this is actually factual, or, imagined...... well I think it is. My interpretation & implementation of what I think I've read.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

OK, whoa whoa whoa, Tigers…let’s keep this cart on the track. This is actually a lot simpler to follow if we keep it simpler to follow. ?

Neal, yah, this may be an issue of “the power to corrupt”, in terms of just because YOU CAN doesn’t mean YOU SHOULD. That’s why I posted this.

So, BASICALLY…and I do mean, SIMPLY PUT…

If you’re gonna “suck in” an outside source of WiFi on 2.4 and/or 5ghz, you can‘t have your AP transmitting ON THE SAME 2.4 and/or 5ghz.

On our home routers…AS A DEFAULT…the AP is set Up with BOTH 2.4 and 5ghz. So, for “most of us”, setting up the PepWaves to do the same is kind of a knee-jerk…go To the freezer-get the box…kind of action.

So, bottom line is, if you ARE going to “suck in” the CG’s WiFi, then you better take a pick of WHICH spectrum you’re gonna use. Ahhhh, yes, and so the dilemma. WHAT IF the CG only uses 2.4? Well, don’t most of us set our AP’s with 2.4 as preferred? I do, and my fear is that I have SOME devices that may not be 5ghz capable. BUUUT, I guess its’ time to find out.

Therefore, my “thought” of best practice would be:

Set your coach’s AP to ONLY use 5Ghz…IF you plan to use a CG wifi on 2.4ghz.

Here is my current config for ya…